The Life of Francis Marion

We may safely conclude that there was no exaggeration in this picture. The lot of all the refugees seems to have been very equally severe. Men and women, old and young, strove together in the most menial and laborious occupations. But, as courage and virtue usually go hand in hand with industry, the three are apt to triumph together. Such was the history in the case of the Carolina Huguenots. If the labor and the suffering were great, the fruits were prosperity. They were more. Honors, distinction, a goodly name, and the love of those around them, have blessed their posterity, many of whom rank with the noblest citizens that were ever reared in America. In a few years after their first settlement, their forest homes were crowned with a degree of comfort, which is described as very far superior to that in the usual enjoyment of the British colonists. They were a more docile and tractable race; not so restless, nor—though this may seem difficult to understand to those who consider their past history—so impatient of foreign control. Of their condition in Carolina, we have a brief but pleasing picture from the hands of John Lawson, then surveyor-general of the province of North Carolina.* This gentleman, in 1701, just fifteen years after its settlement, made a progress through that portion of the Huguenot colony which lay immediately along the Santee. The passages which describe his approach to the country which they occupied, the hospitable reception which they gave him, the comforts they enjoyed, the gentleness of their habits, the simplicity of their lives, and their solicitude in behalf of strangers, are necessary to furnish the moral of those fortunes, the beginning of which was so severe and perilous. "There are," says he, "about seventy families seated on this river, WHO LIVE AS DECENTLY AND HAPPILY AS ANY PLANTERS IN THESE SOUTHWARD PARTS OF AMERICA. THE FRENCH BEING A TEMPERATE, INDUSTRIOUS PEOPLE, some of them bringing very little of effects, YET, BY THEIR ENDEAVORS AND MUTUAL ASSISTANCE AMONG THEMSELVES (which is highly to be commended), HAVE OUTSTRIPT OUR ENGLISH, WHO BROUGHT WITH THEM LARGER FORTUNES, though (as it seems) less endeavor to manage their talent to the best advantage. 'Tis admirable to see what time and industry will (with God's blessing) effect," &c.... ... "We lay all that night at Mons. EUGEE'S (Huger), and the next morning set out farther, to go the remainder of our voyage by land. At ten o'clock we passed over a narrow, deep swamp, having left the three Indian men and one woman, that had piloted the canoe from Ashley river, having hired a Sewee Indian, a tall, lusty fellow, who carried a pack of our clothes, of great weight. Notwithstanding his burden, we had much ado to keep pace with him. At noon we came up with several French plantations. Meeting with several creeks by the way, THE FRENCH WERE VERY OFFICIOUS IN ASSISTING US WITH THEIR SMALL DORIES TO PASS OVER THESE WATERS: whom we met coming from their church, BEING ALL OF THEM VERY CLEAN AND DECENT IN THEIR APPAREL; their HOUSES AND PLANTATIONS SUITABLE IN NEATNESS AND CONTRIVANCE. They are all of the same opinion with the church of Geneva,** there being no difference among them concerning the punctilios of their Christian faith; WHICH UNION HATH PROPAGATED A HAPPY AND DELIGHTFUL CONCORD IN ALL OTHER MATTERS THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD; LIVING AMONGST THEMSELVES AS ONE TRIBE OR KINDRED, EVERY ONE MAKING IT HIS BUSINESS TO BE ASSISTANT TO THE WANTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN, PRESERVING HIS ESTATE AND REPUTATION WITH THE SAME EXACTNESS AND CONCERN AS HE DOES HIS OWN: ALL SEEMING TO SHARE IN THE MISFORTUNES, AND REJOICE AT THE ADVANCE AND RISE OF THEIR BRETHREN." Lawson fitly concludes his account of the settlers upon the Santee, by describing them as "a very kind, loving, and affable people"—a character which it has been the happy solicitude of their descendants to maintain to the present day.***

A more delightful picture than this of Mr. Lawson, could not well be drawn by the social perfectionist. The rational beauty of the voluntary system could not find a happier illustration; and, duly impressed with its loveliness, we shall cease to wonder at the instances of excellence, equally frequent and admirable, which rose up among this little group of exiles, to the good fortune of the country which gave them shelter, and in attestation of their own virtues. But this happy result was due entirely to their training. It would be wonderful, indeed, if such an education, toil and watch, patient endurance of sickness and suffering, sustained only by sympathy with one another and a humble reliance upon divine mercy, should not produce many perfect characters—men like Francis Marion, the beautiful symmetry of whose moral structure leaves us nothing to regret in the analysis of his life. Uncompromising in the cause of truth, stern in the prosecution of his duties, hardy and fearless as the soldier, he was yet, in peace, equally gentle and compassionate, pleased to be merciful, glad and ready to forgive, sweetly patient of mood, and distinguished throughout by such prominent virtues, that, while always sure of the affections of followers and comrades, he was not less secure in the unforced confidence of his enemies, among whom his integrity and mercy were proverbial. By their fruits, indeed, shall we know this community, the history of which furnishes as fine a commentary upon the benefit of good social training for the young—example and precept happily keeping concert with the ordinary necessities and performances of life, the one supported by the manliest courage, the other guided by the noblest principle—as any upon record.*

When our traveller turned his back upon this "kind, loving, and affable people," to pursue his journey into North Carolina, his first forward step was into a howling wilderness. The Santee settlement, though but forty miles distant from Charleston, was a frontier—all beyond was waste, thicket and forest, filled with unknown and fearful animals, and

which the footstep of man dreaded to disturb. Of the wild beasts by which it was tenanted, a single further extract from the journal of Mr. Lawson will give us a sufficient and striking idea. He has left the Santee settlements but a single day—probably not more than fifteen miles. His Indian companion has made for his supper a bountiful provision, having killed three fat turkeys in the space of half an hour. "When we were all asleep," says our traveller, "in the beginning of the night, we were awakened with the dismallest and most hideous noise that ever pierced my ears. This sudden surprisal incapacitated us of guessing what this threatening noise might proceed from; but our Indian pilot (who knew these parts very well) acquainted us that it was customary to hear such musick along that swamp-side, there being endless numbers of panthers, tygers, wolves, and other beasts of prey, which take this swamp for their abode in the day, coming in whole droves to hunt the deer in the night, making this frightful ditty till day appears, then all is still as in other places." (Page 26.)

Less noisy, except in battle, but even more fearful, were the half-human possessors of the same regions, the savages, who, at that period, in almost countless tribes or families, hovered around the habitations of the European. Always restless, commonly treacherous, warring or preparing for war, the red men required of the white borderer the vigilance of an instinct which was never to be allowed repose. This furnished an additional school for the moral and physical training of our young Huguenots. In this school, without question, the swamp and forest partisans of a future day took some of their first and most valuable lessons in war. Here they learned to be watchful and circumspect, cool in danger, steady in advance, heedful of every movement of the foe, and—which is of the very last importance in such a country and in such a warfare as it indicates—happily dextrous in emergencies to seize upon the momentary casualty, the sudden chance—to convert the most trivial circumstance, the most ordinary agent, into a means of extrication or offence. It was in this last respect particularly, in being quick to see, and prompt to avail themselves of the happy chance or instrument, that the partisans of the revolution in the southern colonies, under Marion and others, asserted their vast superiority over the invader, and maintained their ground, and obtained their final triumph, in spite of every inequality of arms and numbers.

Chapter 2.

We have dwelt upon the Huguenot Settlement in Carolina, somewhat more largely than our immediate subject would seem to require. Our apology must be found in the obvious importance and beauty of the fact, could this be shown, that the character of Francis Marion was in truth a remarkable illustration, in all its parts, of the moral nature which prevailed in this little colony of exiles: that, from the harmony existing among them, their purity of conduct, propriety of sentiment, the modesty of their deportment and the firmness of their virtues, he most naturally drew all the components of his own. His hardihood, elasticity, great courage and admirable dexterity in war, were also the natural results of their frontier position. We do not pretend that his acquisitions were at all peculiar to himself. On the contrary, we take for granted, that every distinguished person will, in some considerable degree, betray in his own mind and conduct, the most striking of those characteristics, which mark the community in which he has had his early training; that his actions will, in great measure, declare what sort of moral qualities have been set before his eyes, not so much by his immediate family, as by the society at large in which he lives; that he will represent that society rather than his immediate family, as it is the nature of superior minds to rush out of the narrow circles of domestic life; and that his whole after-performances, even where he may appear in the garb and guise of the reformer, will indicate in numerous vital respects, the tastes and temper of the very people whose alteration and improvement he seeks. The memoir upon which we are about to enter, will, we apprehend, justify the preliminary chapter which has been given to the history of the Huguenots upon the Santee. Gabriel Marion, the grandfather of our subject, was one of those who left France in 1685. His son, named after himself, married Charlotte Cordes, by whom he had seven children, five of whom were sons and two daughters.* Francis Marion was the last. He was born at Winyah, near Georgetown, South Carolina, in 1732; a remarkable year, as, in a sister colony (we are not able to say how nearly at the same time), it gave birth to GEORGE WASHINGTON. This coincidence, which otherwise it might seem impertinent to notice here, derives some importance from the fact that it does not stand alone, but is rendered impressive by others, to be shown as we proceed; not to speak of the striking moral resemblances, which it will be no disparagement to the fame of the great Virginian to trace between the two.

The infancy of Marion was unpromising. At birth he was puny and diminutive in a remarkable degree. Weems, in his peculiar fashion, writes, "I have it from good authority, that this great soldier, at his birth, was not larger than a New England lobster, and might easily enough have been put into a quart pot." It was certainly as little supposed that he should ever live to manhood, as that he should then become a hero. But, by the time that he had reached his twelfth year, his constitution underwent a change. His health became good. The bracing exercises and hardy employments of country life invigorated his frame, and with this improvement brought with it a rare increase of energy. He grew restless and impatient. The tendency of his mind, which was so largely developed in the partisan exercises of after years, now began to exhibit itself. Under this impulse he conceived a dislike to the staid and monotonous habits of rural life, and resolved upon seafaring as a vocation. Such, it may be remarked, was also the early passion of Washington; a passion rather uncommon in the history of a southern farmer's boy. In the case of Washington the desire was only overcome at the solicitations of his mother. The mother of Marion, in like manner, strove to dissuade her son from this early inclination. She did not succeed, however, and when scarcely sixteen, he embarked in a small vessel for the West Indies. The particulars of this voyage, with the exception of the mode in which it terminated, have eluded our inquiry. We have looked for the details in vain. The name of the vessel, the captain, the port she sailed from, have equally escaped our search. To the wanton destruction of private and public records by the British, together with the heedless improvidence of heads of families in the South, we owe this poverty of historical resource. The voyage must have been taken somewhere about the year 1747-8. At that period there were perils of the sea to which the mariner is not often exposed at the present day. The waters of the Gulf of Mexico, in particular, were covered with pirates. The rich produce of New Spain, the West Indies, and the Southern Colonies of the English, were rare temptations. The privateers of Spain and France, a sort of legalized pirates, hung about the ports of Carolina, frequently subjecting them to a condition of blockade, and sometimes to forced contributions. In the occasional absence of the British armed vessels appointed for the protection of these ports, the more enterprising and spirited among their citizens frequently fitted out their own cruisers, drawing them, for this purpose, from the merchant service; manning them in person, and requiting themselves for their losses of merchandise by the occasional capture of some richly laden galleon from New Spain. No doubt the imagination of young Marion was fired by hearing of these exploits. The sensation produced in the community, by the injuries done to its commerce, in all probability gave the direction to his already excited and restless disposition. It does not appear, however, that Marion's first and only voyage was made in an armed vessel. Such, we may well suppose, would have been his desire; but the period when he set forth to procure service upon the seas, may not have been auspicious. He may have reached the seaport a moment too soon or too late, and the opportunities of this kind were necessarily infrequent in a small and frontier city, whose commerce lay mostly in the hands of strangers. His small size and puny appearance must have operated very much against his hopes of obtaining employment in a service which particularly calls for manhood and muscle. In what capacity, or in what sort of vessel he obtained a berth, we are left wholly to conjecture. Choosing the sea as a vocation, and laudably resolved on acquiring a proper knowledge of his business (as from what we know of his character, we may suppose was the case), he most probably went before the mast. His first and only voyage was unfortunate. The ship in which he sailed was no doubt equally frail and small. She foundered at sea, whether going or returning is not said; in consequence, we are told, of injuries received from the stroke of a whale, of the thornback species. So suddenly did she sink, that her crew, only six in number, had barely time to save themselves. They escaped to the jolly boat, saving nothing but their lives. They took with them neither water nor provisions; and for six days, hopeless of succor, they lay tossing to and fro, upon the bald and cheerless ocean. A dog, which swam to them from the sinking vessel, was sacrificed to their hunger. His raw flesh was their only food, his blood their only drink, during this distressing period. Two of their number perished miserably.* The survivors, on the seventh day, were found and taken up by a passing vessel, nourished carefully and finally restored to their homes.

Francis Marion was one of these survivors. The puny boy lived through the terrors and sufferings under which the strong men perished. So intense were their sufferings, so terrible the trial, that it will not greatly task the imagination to recognize in the preservation of the youth,—looking to his future usefulness—the agency of a special providence. The boy was preserved for other times and fortunes; and, in returning to his mother, was perhaps better prepared to heed her entreaties that he should abandon all idea of an element, from which his escape had been so hazardous and narrow. It was well for himself and country that he did so. It can scarcely be conjectured that his achievements on the sea would have been half so fortunate, or half so honorable to himself and country, as those which are now coupled with his name.

Returning to his home and parents, young Marion sunk once more into the humble condition of the farmer. His health and strength had continued to improve. His adventures by sea had served, seemingly, to complete that change for the better, in his physical man, which had been so happily begun on land; and, subduing his roving inclinations, we hear of him only, in a period of ten years, as a tiller of the earth. In this vocation he betrayed that diligent attention to his duties, that patient hardihood, and calm, equable temper, which distinguished his deportment in every part of his career. He is represented as equally industrious and successful as a farmer. The resources of his family seem to have been very moderate. There were several children, and before Francis was yet twenty-five years of age, he lost his father. In 1758 he was planting with his mother and brother Gabriel, near Friersons Lock on the Santee Canal. In 1759 they separated. Gabriel removed to Belle Isle—the place where the mortal remains of Francis Marion now repose—while the latter settled at a place called Pond Bluff in the Parish of St. John.* This place he continued to hold during life. It is still pointed out to the traveller as Marion's plantation, and is the more remarkable, as it lies within cannon shot of the battle ground of Eutaw, which his valor and conduct contributed to render so justly famous in the history of his native state. During this long period of repose—the interval between his shipwreck, and removal to Pond Bluff,—we are only left to conjecture his employments. Beyond his agricultural labors, we may suppose that his chief tasks were the cultivation of his mind, by close application to those studies which, in the condition of the country, sparsely settled, and without teachers, were usually very inadequately urged. It does not appear that his acquisitions in this respect were more valuable than could be afforded at the present day by the simplest grammar-school of the country. Here again we may trace the resemblance between his career and that of Washington. Equally denied the advantages of education, they equally drew from the great mother-sources of nature. Thrown upon their own thoughts, taught by observation and experience—the same results of character,—firmness, temperance, good sense, sagacious foresight, and deliberate prudence—became conspicuous in the conduct and career of both. In the fortunes of neither—in the several tasks allotted to them,—in their various situations,—did their deficiencies of education appear to qualify their successes, or diminish the respect and admiration of those around them,—a singular fact, as indicative equally of the modesty, the good sense, and the superior intrinsic worth of both of these distinguished persons. In the case of Marion, his want of education neither lessened his energies, his confidence in himself, nor baffled any of his natural endowments. On the contrary, it left his talents free to their natural direction. These, it is probable, were never of a kind to derive, or to need, many advantages from a very superior or scientific education. His mind was rather practical than subtile—his genius prompted him to action, rather than to study,—and the condition and necessities of the country, calling for the former rather than the latter character, readily reconciled him to a deficiency the importance of which he did not feel.

Chapter 3.

From the readiness with which young Marion yielded himself to the entreaties of his mother, and resumed the occupations of agriculture, and from the quiet and persevering industry with which he pursued them for a period of nearly or quite ten years, it might be supposed that the impatience and restlessness of mood, which had formerly led him to revolt at the staid drudgery of rural life, had been entirely extinguished in his bosom. But such was not the case. It was only subdued, and slumbering for a season, ready to awaken at the first opportunity, with all the vigor and freshness of a favorite passion. That opportunity was at hand. Events were in progress which were to bring into the field, and prepare by the very best sort of training, for the most noble trials, the great military genius of the Partisan. At the opening of the year 1759, the colony of South Carolina was on the eve of an Indian war. The whole frontier of the Southern Provinces, from Pennsylvania to Georgia, was threatened by the savages, and the scalping-knife had already begun its bloody work upon the weak and unsuspecting borderers. The French had been conquered upon the Ohio. Forts Frontenac and Duquesne had fallen. British and Provincial valor, aided by strong bodies of Cherokee warriors, had everywhere placed the flag of Britain above the fortresses of France. With its elevation, the Indian allies of the French sent in their adhesion to the conquerors; and, their work at an end, the Cherokee auxiliaries of Britain prepared to return to their homes, covered with their savage trophies, and adequately rewarded for their services. It happened, unfortunately, that, while passing along the frontiers of Virginia, the Cherokees, many of whom had lost their horses during the campaign, supplied themselves rather unscrupulously from the pastures of the colonists. With inconsiderate anger, the Virginians, forgetting the late valuable services of the savages, rose upon their footsteps, slew twelve or fourteen of their warriors, and made prisoners of as many more. This rash and ill-advised severity aroused the nation. The young warriors flew to arms, and pouring their active hordes upon the frontier settlements, proceeded to the work of slaughter, without pausing to discriminate between the offending and the innocent. The emergency was pressing, and Governor Lyttleton, of South Carolina, called out the militia of the province. They were required to rendezvous at the Congarees, about one hundred and forty miles from Charleston. To this rendezvous Francis Marion repaired, in a troop of provincial cavalry commanded by one of his brothers.* But he was not yet to flesh his maiden valor upon the enemy. The prompt preparation of the Carolinians had somewhat lessened the appetite of the savages for war. Perhaps their own preparations were not yet sufficiently complete to make them hopeful of its issue. The young warriors were recalled from the frontiers, and a deputation of thirty-two chiefs set out for Charleston, in order to propitiate the anger of the whites, and arrest the threatened invasion of their country. Whether they were sincere in their professions, or simply came for the purpose of deluding and disarming the Carolinians, is a question with the historians. It is certain that Governor Lyttleton doubted their sincerity, refused to listen to their explanations, and, carrying them along with him, rather as hostages than as commissioners in sacred trust, he proceeded to meet the main body of his army, already assembled at the Congarees. The treatment to which they were thus subjected, filled the Cherokee deputies with indignation, which, with the usual artifice of the Indian, they yet contrived to suppress. But another indiscreet proceeding of the Governor added to the passion which they felt, and soon baffled all their powers of concealment. In resuming the march for the nation, he put them into formal custody, placed a captain's guard over them, and in this manner hurried them to the frontiers. Whatever may have been the merits of this movement as a mere military precaution, it was of very bad policy in a civil point of view. It not only degraded the Indian chiefs in their own, but in the eyes of their people. His captives deeply and openly resented this indignity and breach of faith; and, brooding in sullen ferocity over the disgrace which they suffered, meditated in silence those schemes of vengeance which they subsequently brought to a fearful maturity. But though thus impetuous and imprudent, and though pressing forward as if with the most determined purposes, Lyttleton was in no mood for war. His policy seems to have contemplated nothing further than the alarm of the Indians. Neither party was exactly ripe for the final issue. The Cherokees needed time for preparation, and the Governor, with an army ill disciplined and imperfectly armed, found it politic, when on the very confines of the enemy's country, to do that which he might very well have done in Charleston—listen to terms of accommodation. Having sent for Attakullakullah, the wise man of the nation, who had always been the staunch friend of the whites, he made his complaints, and declared his readiness for peace;—demanding, however, as the only condition on which it could be granted, that twenty-four men of the nation should be delivered to him, to be disposed of as he should think proper, by death or otherwise, as an atonement for that number of Carolinians, massacred in the late foray of the savages. A treaty was effected, but with some difficulty, on these terms. Compliance with this requisition was not so easy, however, on the part of the Cherokee chiefs. The moment it was understood, the great body of their people fled to the mountains, and the number of hostages could be secured only by the detention of twenty-two of those chiefs already in the Governor's custody. The captives were placed, for safe keeping, at the frontier fort of Prince George.